Unlike Anything I'd Known
by Blue Zombie
Summary: Ponyboy and Johnny at the church, all those lonely days in Windrixville, slash.
1. Chapter 1

This was the church up at Windrixville. It was unlike anything I'd known. I'd mostly known Tulsa, the smog and the dirt swept into corners and the cars and the noise. Dad used to bring us hunting and fishing once in a while but still, this was different. There wasn't anything here, just this church, the sky, me and Johnny.

He was asleep. In the first few days he didn't sleep much but I guess all the exhaustion caught up to him. There wasn't much to do here, anyway. Play cards. Smoke. Sleep. I'd gotten sick from all the smoking, just like Johnny said I would. I couldn't help it, I was edgy and bored, the two things that made me want to smoke. Johnny wasn't smoking any more or less than usual.

I watched him sleep, watched as he breathed in and out, watched his eyes move under his closed lids. What was he dreaming about? Maybe the kid laying dead in the moonlight, the blood spreading in a maroon pool beneath him. Maybe his old man hitting him. Maybe the socs and that time in the vacant lot. I'd always thought there was more to that whole story. Johnny had a pretty rough life at home, why that beating by the socs effected him so much was always kind of weird. I'd seen his old man hit him with a two-by-four, for Christ's sake. I'd seen him with black eyes and busted ribs from his old man. His dad was a mean drunk. Crazy mean.

I lit up a cigarette despite the fact that Johnny was right and I had been smoking too much. But it calmed my nerves, or I thought it did, and thinking makes it so. I read that somewhere, once, but right now I was too scattered to remember who wrote it or what book it came from. What did it matter anyway? Sometimes I thought I'd never get into college no matter how smart I was, we simply couldn't afford it, and I'd have to get some mediocre job like Darry and Soda had to pitch in and we'd always be behind, and I'd go and do my manual labor and wonder about what I could have been. Sometimes I thought that.

I didn't think we'd stay in this church forever. I thought I knew Johnny before but now, all this time alone together, all the talking he did. I'd never heard that kid talk so much, and I realized I didn't know him half as good as I thought I did. I didn't realize how smart he was. Like his teachers and the socs I guess I thought he wasn't that smart. He wasn't book smart like me, but it wasn't everything. He had trouble with reading, I knew that, but when I read "Gone with the Wind," to him he got so much out of it, so much more out of it than I did, really. And I'd thought I was the deep one.

Things felt shaky, like something was trembling somewhere. I mean, things I thought were true weren't turning out that way. I was wondering if all my assumptions would prove to be false, everything I thought I knew might just blow away like dust in a strong wind someday. I was wrong about Johnny. I'd thought of him like we all did, like everyone's pet and kid brother, even thought he was older than me. He'd never seemed older than me. But now, he killed that soc to save me, he decided we should go to Dally for help. If it had been up to me I wouldn't have done anything. I would have stared at that dead body until the cops came and hauled us away.

It was getting late in the morning and still Johnny slept. I listened to his deep breathing and noticed how young he looked. His hair was jet black but now it was short and clean, and that made him look younger, too. We weren't greasers anymore, not really. But if we weren't that then what were we?

I pitched my cigarette and lit another one despite the small headache that had started behind my eyes. Johnny stirred and moaned in his sleep but still he didn't wake up. I noticed the fading threads of denim on his jean jacket, the soft black T-shirt he wore, the black converse sneakers. I saw his fingernails all bitten down and ragged, and I couldn't believe he'd killed someone with those hands, the blood running down the knife, making me think of Lady Macbeth.

I smoked and watched over Johnny, wishing he would wake up so I'd have someone to talk to, something to do, and get out of my own head for one minute. I reached out and touched his hair, brushed it back, and he didn't wake or even stir. He was out. I touched the stiff denim of the collar of his jean jacket.

I wondered what Johnny would do if I tried to kiss him. Would he yell at me, or just shrug and turn away? Maybe he'd kiss me back, maybe. I didn't know why I was thinking this way. It wouldn't get me anywhere.

I was sort of hungry but I didn't want anymore baloney, and that's all that Johnny bought. Maybe I'd eat it anyway, just to have calories to burn. I was making myself a sandwich when Johnny woke up, rubbing his eyes and blinking at me. I spread mustard across one of the slices of bread and gazed at him.

"Hey, Ponyboy," he said, his voice thick and scratchy with sleep.

"Hey," I said, watching him stretch and wince at a kink in his back. The stone floor and the rotting wooden pews were rough on your back. He flipped up the collar of his jacket and dug around in his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. I watched him light one and take a deep drag. He closed his eyes while the nicotine raced for his brain.

We ended up going outside but in the back, so that people passing by on the road couldn't see us. We were convinced that if anyone got just a glimpse of us they'd know exactly who we were and what we had done despite the haircuts. I touched my short bleached blond hair and couldn't believe I looked so stupid. My hair had been so great, the tuffest in the city, me and Soda had the coolest hair.

I choked down the rest of my baloney sandwich and sat on the stone steps. Johnny smoked his cigarette and tossed it away, and he didn't light another one. Man, I was wishing I hadn't had two like that, because I wanted another one now and I knew that would give me a worse headache than I already had. So I sat on the steps and listened to Johnny make himself a peanut butter sandwich. He came outside to eat it, and I could smell the peanut butter that he had slathered onto the bread. It reminded me of being a little kid and the sandwiches my mom made for me and Soda for school. The oddest little thing can get me thinking about my parents. I could close my eyes and see my mother's face, but it was harder to remember exactly how her voice sounded. I wished I could see her again, just one time, one time more.

"Pony, you okay?" Johnny said, snapping me back to reality. I blinked and saw him eating his sandwich, I saw the rotting white church behind us, and I swallowed hard, blinked back tears. Greasers don't cry, even ones with bleached blond hair.

"Yeah,"

We played cards for awhile and he kept winning, another reason I thought he was smarter than I had thought. Johnny was tougher and smarter than I had thought he was, and Dally was more helpful and kind than I thought he was, although I suspected all the help he was providing wasn't so much for me as it was for Johnny. If it had been just me knifing a soc in cold blood would Dally have gone all out to help me? I didn't know.

The light just sort of faded from the sky back here, the sunset was out front, but Johnny wouldn't let me go and see it. I had to defer to him, since he had so much more to lose. We were both smoking too much now, neither of us was very hungry. I tried to keep the cigarettes to a minimum but it was hard. We lit some candles in the church and it made it all eerie as they flickered.

I read a little bit of "Gone with the Wind," squinting to see the words in the dim light, and I could feel how intently Johnny was listening. I could kind of guess at what happened with him in school. He had real trouble reading, he'd told me before that the words got all jumbled up and letters looked backwards so it took him forever to puzzle it out. That meant he ended up in the classes with the kids who didn't care or kids who were stupid, and it was hard to pay attention in those classes, with the kids being all noisy and rowdy all the time, and the teachers had kind of given up anyway.

I closed the book, my eyes burning with the effort to read in this dim light. Johnny looked disappointed that I stopped, but I couldn't read anymore.

"Sorry," I said to him, and he nodded, used to disappointment.

In the chill of the night and the drafty old church I sat closer to him, feeling the comfort of his warmth. I wished I knew what was gonna happen, how this would all turn out. Would the cops catch us? Would Johnny get the electric chair? Would Darry lose custody of me and Soda? Maybe all that would happen. I couldn't think of it anymore.

"Johnny, what's gonna happen?" I asked him as if he could tell me. He didn't know anymore than I did.

He shook his head and brushed my hair from my forehead, and I liked the feeling of his fingers against my forehead.

"I don't know," he said softly, and I snuggled closer to him, watching the candles flicker down, the flames drowning in the wax. I closed my eyes and leaned my head toward him, wanting to kiss him, wanting something. No one would have to know, this was a strange place and time, we were out of our regular lives. No one would have to know. I brushed my lips against his and his eyes widened a little, those dark eyes filled with anxiety and fear all the time because he was abused, I knew that was why. I knew that was why he flinched away from sudden movements, because sudden movements at his house meant he'd get a beating. But I liked that about him, I liked how injured and traumatized he was, I liked how the black eyes looked, the bruises. It made him look tuff. So I leaned in to kiss him for real and his eyes closed and he kissed me back. He tasted like pepsi and cigarettes and peanut butter, and I liked the feeling of his tongue in my mouth, so soft and unexpected.


	2. Chapter 2

It was late. He was asleep again. He sure slept a lot. I couldn't sleep, not much and not well, not with all this uncertainty about everything. We were in free fall and everything was gonna change. It kept me up and it kept me restless. But Johnny could sleep through it, the stress didn't seem to effect him the same as it did with me. But, I figured, he was used to a certain amount of stress that I wasn't. Getting hit every time you turned around was stressful. At least out here he didn't have to worry about that.

The kiss still tingled on my lips, and I touched them. They felt bruised and tender. I'd never kissed anybody before. I'd never thought of kissing Johnny before this. He was just my buddy, that was all. But here, all alone, all this talking, sleeping close together for warmth, things were changing.

I'd never noticed before how his eyes looked, how large and scared. I'd seen that, of course. But it had never made me feel what it does now, this feeling of being pulled toward him, wanting to touch him. It was things I'd seen but never really noticed before. The quietness of his voice. The way he looks down and away from you when he says something.

I watched Johnny sleep, watched the way his breathing was deep and even. I watched him until the candles burned out, and then I went to sleep, too.

When I woke up I was half cold and half warm, I was cuddled up against Johnny because I was freezing, and Dally's jacket was half over me and half over him as a sort of blanket. Where he was, against me, I was warm, but I felt the coldness everywhere else. I tried to burrow into his warmth. In the bright morning light I saw his eyes lightly closed, and moving beneath his eyelids. He was dreaming. All I was having were nightmares.

I got up, too restless to stay laying down anymore. Johnny stirred and made a little noise deep in his chest when I stood up, and he curled up more, feeling the cold now that I had left. I put Dally's jacket over him despite being freezing myself. I rubbed my arms through Buck's huge shirt and went outside into the sun.

I waited for Johnny to wake up like I did every day. Would we mention that kiss? I couldn't imagine that we would. What would we say? Maybe it was a one time thing that would never be mentioned and never happen again.

It was nearly noon by the time he got up, I could tell by where the sun was in the sky. The chill was out of the air now, and I was chewing on a tasteless baloney sandwich, not tasting it, swallowing it down just to be eating something. I was losing my appetite here. The thought of going to jail or juvey, of Johnny getting the electric chair, of getting taken away from Darry and Soda, all of this made food repulsive to me.

I was feeling a little afraid of Johnny because of that kiss. Nervous, I mean. Like I didn't know what to say to him, and maybe he'd be mad at me or something. So I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away, letting the sandwich fall uneaten to the grass. I'd let him say something first.

"Are you okay?" he said, touching my arm, and I looked over at him. What was I afraid of? It was just Johnny, and he looked worried about me.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I let the lies just spill out of my mouth. I wasn't fine. I was a mess. Johnny had killed someone and that was the biggest trouble you could get into. And now, I was feeling these feelings like wanting to kiss him again, wanting to straddle him and hold his wrists to the ground and kiss him…did I need that sort of thing on top of my life spiraling apart? I didn't think I did, but there it was.

He only nodded and lit his own cigarette, and I wondered what was going on in his head. Was he thinking about all the trouble he was headed for, because we both knew we couldn't stay here forever. We both knew the cops would get us sooner or later. We both knew he was going to jail or juvey even if I wasn't. Was he thinking of that kiss at all? Was he, in any way, attracted to me like I was to him? But I wouldn't get these answers from him. Johnny was real quiet, and when you asked him direct things he'd answer, but usually with just one or two words. He never spilled his guts.


End file.
